Insights on Insights

Axis principles attended Sage’s annual partner conference, Insights, in May. In an article posted on WebCPA, Manny Buigas, CPA and principal at Axis Global Partners, was quoted as being “encouraged by Sage’s renewed commitment to CPAs, and to the channel in general”. However, he was more pleased by its product strategy. "I really like what I saw with its Connected Services offerings and Sage Accpac ERP 6.0. Sage serves millions of customers in the SMB space and some of these offerings play well across their entire product lines, such as FAS, Sage Payment Services, Sage CRM, etc.," said Buigas. "I think we will see more of a focus on getting attachment in these types of products across all product lines. In addition, the ability to offer our customers marketing, recruiting and payroll services in the future will enable us to deliver ongoing value to our customers."

The big product news was Sage Accpac ERP version 6.0 targeted for release in December 2010. The new features include:

A new personalized Portal – which makes it a lot easier for users to find and navigate to the screens they need.

Snapshots – which provide information on key performance indicators (KPI) for financial managers, such as income statement and balance sheets, aged payables and receivables, and days outstanding payables and receivables.

Inquiry – which allows any user of Sage Accpac to quickly create “ad hoc” queries to get lists of information out of GL, AR and AP (reducing the need to have to customize Crystal Reports!)

SageCRM Integration – designed from a sales person’s point of view, the SageCRM integration is now “seamless” and makes it much easier for sales people to create quotes and orders.

And, last but not least, the ability the lock fiscal periods by module. This is a highly requested enhancement by users.

You can now see the enhancements yourself in a "sneak peak" video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYUErIxYiPg . This video is based on the alpha builds of Version 6.0 which was demonstrated at the Insights conference last month.

Overall, it was a very encouraging conference highlighted by Sage’s announcement of their global promise to deliver “Extraordinary Customer Experiences”. More on this coming soon.